Gutter watering system

[nickdub]

Last year I had about 25 tomato plants in my two poly-tunnels and though the crop from them was OK, it could certainly have been better. I won't bore you with the details of my various inadequacies as a gardener, but I do want to highlight one problem which stood out and that was the watering the plants really needed from the middle to the end of the season compared with how much they got - the ratio was a ton needed, to about half or less delivered.

Now this was not entirely down to laziness on my part (stop sniggering at the back). We had some v hot weather last year and really the plants needed watering 3 or maybe 4 times a day, which was more than I could find time or inclination to do most days.

Over winter, I scouted out a few systems and came across this one :-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRQzhFBCot4
So as I had plenty of old squarish plastic gutter (ogee profile I think for the technically minded) I decided to see if I could get something running for this year. So far I have 4 sections of gutter blocked off so they hold water, nothing fancy to feed water in, they will just have to be topped up from a can, but I'm hoping they will allow me to water only once a day.

Anyway today I have put the first pots of tomatoes in place in the new system, and we'll see how it goes. I used small plastic pots about 4" diameter with a hole cut in the bottom for a wick made out of capillary matting - the young tomato plants have been growing these for about 10 days. These pots are then fitted in holes cut in the bottoms of Morrison's flower buckets and compost put in to bring the level up to the bottom leaves of the plants. The first variety is Harzfeuer, as this has grown more quickly than the other sorts I have, the biggest plants being about 9" high.

[SimpleSimon]

Interesting system. I've been using leaky pipe which Ive buried about 4 inches this year. I'm gonna grow in them fancy tomato halos on top of it and mulch the whole bed in plastic. I'm hoping it just means I need to feed the plants once a week and the pipe will do the watering from the bottom. Well that's the theory. It was on the surface last year with no mulch and didn't really cut it. I've added a pump and a timer and plan to run it for about 30mins each morning. We shall see. If it doesn't work I'm switching to drip irragation which I use for chillis but already have too many drippers. Adding another 40 will be a headache.

The leaky hose can also be left on overnight fed by gravity and it leaks about 200 litres into an 8m x 1.2m bed which would work quite well I think. I like playing around with these systems but I've not quite found on that fully waters a poly tunnel for you all summer haha

[nickdub]

I guess there's no one answer fits all system because we all garden differently. I'm at home almost all the time so one watering session per day in the Summer is fine by me - I'd go to my PT to check on the plants anyway. I do know people who have put in timers to control a mains watering system, but if I went down that road I'd have to put both the electric and some sort of mains fed hose out to the end of my garden - not impossible but more work than I'd want to do to for a few tomatoes etc. Also, I am hoping to get my IBC's linked up to harvest and store rainwater over the winter for use the following summer - dirty water and expensive timer systems don't match together well in my experience.

[Mark_Riga]

You don't need any electric for a mains watering system. I bought this, battery operated, from screwfix for £20 but there are others. Don't see why it wouldn't work with rain water but haven't tried that.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/verve-pro...er-timer/4280v

Then a dripper system (Claber) for a greenhouse and some leaky hose for a polytunnel. Used mainly when away from home. Don't think I'll be needing them this year but will set them up if we have a prolonged hot spell when the plants are bigger.

[bario1]

I have a leaky hose system in my polytunnel, gravity fed from a water tank that fills from rainfall on the tunnel itself. Works a treat, but it’s only a small tunnel - a bigger one might need more pressure.

[SimpleSimon]

I have a leaky hose system in my polytunnel, gravity fed from a water tank that fills from rainfall on the tunnel itself. Works a treat, but it’s only a small tunnel - a bigger one might need more pressure.

My tunnel is 36ft long and I had leaky hose from an IBC that was a meter off the ground. Each run of hose was a single 36ft run and it worked but only just. It took hours to leak a decent amount into the bed. I often left it on overnight doing 2 runs at once and it would leak about 200litres in total. So it worked but defo not ideal.

[bario1]

Mine’s a tiddler, only 12’ long, and I went for a closed loop of hose. The other issue is that in summer, when the plants really need the water, the tank often needs topping up with a hose, even here in rainy Edinburgh!

[nickdub]

I've got 8m of gutter installed now, roughly 4m per side in 4 separate lengths - I might squeeze one more short bit in and use some of it for a few cucumber plants. If I get really enthusiastic I could put some in my smaller PT too - we'll see lots of other jobs which need doing.

[nickdub]

I've got 8m of gutter installed now, roughly 4m per side in 4 separate lengths - I might squeeze one more short bit in and use some of it for a few cucumber plants. If I get really enthusiastic I could put some in my smaller PT too - we'll see lots of other jobs which need doing.

[purplekat]

This is where planting into the ground helps a lot, roots can get deeeper so don't need to water as often as when in pots

[nickdub]

This is where planting into the ground helps a lot, roots can get deeeper so don't need to water as often as when in pots

I tried that for some plants last year with open bottomed pots but the results were not great - possibly due to soil born diseases from previous years - I was considering grafting my tomatoes this year to see if that would do the trick but as I have a load of spare gutter I can use, this alternative method is cost free for me. We'll see, the most advanced of my plants are over a foot high and maybe 2 weeks off flowering, the sunny weather here has helped I think